Hero of Time

This may not come as a surprise since I’ve barely been here lately, but it’s time for me to accept that something about Link just isn’t clicking for me. The fandom and my partners have been lovely, but I’m still regularly struggling to find Link’s voice and get truly invested, and it’s at the point where replies are feeling more like a chore than a hobby. It’s not fair to me or to anyone else to force things that just aren’t working, so I’m taking a formal break from Link for the foreseeable future.

the wind had been howling like thunder - struck seawater so often recently,  whistling through leaves like a mourning mother  —  like a warning for a storm,  but where was it?  he played a fast - paced song along his strings,  messy and anxious,  not unlike the wind,  sitting high on the off - white brick wall of the castle’s exterior.  despite the heart - pound nature of his song,  eyes were kept closed,  serenely,  almost as if octavo could have been napping.  only to open when the sound of grass crushed beneath boots briefly cut through the notes  —  that soldier favored among the others,  among those who had served nearly their entire life to the castle,  someone so young kept so close to the princess  —  for reasons octavo had yet to quite understand.  clearly he had missed something.

“ you.  yes,  you, ”    he called down to him from where he sat.  he had no name to give him  —  but,  oh,  he knew his face,    “ spare me a moment of your time,  would you? ”

although posed as a request,  octavo’s tone suggested it was otherwise a command.  he set his lute aside for a moment,  languidly crossing a leg over a knee.

“ do the good soldiers of hyrule believe in omens? ”

Link was so focused on the path in front of him that it took a moment to register that someone was speaking to him. And a moment longer to locate the speaker. He’d seen the man around the castle before, but they’d never spoken. Part of Link’s role was getting to know the people, to earn their trust... something he was historically bad at. But he could make an attempt, at least.

The princess hesitated, clearly weighing her options with her fears, before she nodded. Their place… it likely was an overgrown thicket now, but she knew it. She would never be allowed out without an escort if at all… it would have to be under cover of night. Still whispering, she gave him the time, and stepped away. The last thing she wanted to do was leave the warmth of him and his kindness, but she still had to be careful.

“…I’ll bring a lantern.”

—

It had nearly gone terribly wrong. It was only the call of another guard to his comrade that stopped her from being found as she made her leave. No time for Asterope, she would have to walk… and pray the Stalfos would fear her fire. The journey took longer on foot, and there were a few scares, but she made it safely to the copse, peering into the dark and lifting her lantern higher.

“…Link?”

Link was at their place as promised, though it was far more overgrown than he remembered. And much smaller. He supposed they’d been much younger then... he leaned against a tree, barely visible through the overhanging leaves, watching towards the castle for Zelda.

The massive white beast whined, tail thumping weakly, the arrow still in her side shaking with movement. She lifted her head and nodded, the action uncanny to see. After a moment, she tried to belly crawl closer, only for pain to once again make her yelp, and be still. She tried to lift one front paw, the arm that had been bitten by the strange Wolfos in the wood. There was still a mark there, but faint.

Relief and terror washed over Link all at once. Zelda wasn’t gone! But she was badly hurt... “Hold still. Hold still, I have you...” He looked over the wound, the arrow still sticking out through the bloodied fur. Reaching for the fabric of his sleeve, he tore off a long strip without so much as a second thought. That would work for a bandage. The arrow would have to come out, and Link was already wincing at the thought.

She trembled and pressed close, struggling to get the words out. She didnt deserve his forgiveness. She hated herself everytime his letters went unanswered, until she stopped opening them completely. Matron ensured that was a rare thing, but she hadn’t cut him off because of what they had done to her. It was her realization that she loved him, and how it couldn’t work, and how it would only hurt him more to know, and she was already ruining everything, so why not–

“I… I don’t know if I can tell you, e-even if… you deserve to know, but its not… safe, people could be listening-”

Ears back and snout buried, Zelda did not dare to look up, as if this were just a nightmare she would wake from soon. But then… he spoke to her. To the beast. She could hear the restraint in his cold tone, the curiosity battling with instinct.

Weakly, her great head lifted to look at him. She almost flew into another volley of barks, trying to talk… but that had been taken poorly before. For a moment, she just lay there, thinking, flank heaving and sweaty. Then carefully, painfully, she stood, moving slow, and rubbed her muzzle in her own patch of blood. Trying not to gag, the wolf stooped to rub its nose on a clean part of tile, the red contrasting with the white marble, as she shakily wrote a single letter. ‘Z’

Then she slumped back down, a few paces away, curled around the torn dress, ears back and head down on the cold ground. It was near impossible for such a huge creature to look nonthreatening, but she tried. It would be up to him to come closer.

Link shuffled back slightly when the beast stood, but still stayed close, watching it warily. It took a moment to process that the wolf was drawing intentionally, not just dragging its snout around randomly. It was writing... Z...

Why Z? Link looked between the letter and the wolf, which was clearly cowering away from him. And there, on the paw, was a pattern of fur that looked almost like the Triforce...

“It’s just a reminder that we must protect this country. It’s what the princess would want.”

That wasn’t untrue. Rain made for easier traveling by night. But it was drowning farms, and the river threatened to flood as well. The Evil King brought nothing but gloomy days. It was hard to stay optimistic, but he did his best to remember that this person right here, would be able to greatly help fix things.

Once the Evil King was stopped, then it would be a matter of repairing the broken pieces. But at least then, the sun would shine again.

“We have to work hard. Even though there is little I can do to truly help you.”

deeper sentence starters ( accepting // @legendarylullaby )

The world has been captured in a kaleidoscope of motion and sound. There’s a scream, not human or goron, maybe not living or dead. The tent falls. So many feet are in motion, armor clinks, women shout. He’s grabbing and pushing sturdy canvas, then there’s a shock of fresh air and a sudden view of the camp. He’s scrambling upright, snatching a tent pole. There’s a huge goron who must be Link, fending off attackers. Now the goron is slamming into the ground, and if Kafei hadn’t rammed the tent pole at the ground for balance, he would have fallen with the soldiers. There’s a sudden challenge; he has to catch the sturdy leather bag. It was a gift. Shouldn’t have taken it to another universe. The goron’s voice, Link’s voice, shouts for him to Go! Now!

Kafei catches the bag and runs. There’s a chilling vertigo in his gut. Every sound of danger around him is very real. If any of the soldiers catch him and have deadly intent, he just isn’t a match for them, his life will go out like a candle in rain. Running with a tent pole is a risk in of itself, but any weapon is better than none. Kafei knows that his knife is in his bag, too, provided he can get to it. The soldiers found it in his boot, and he saw them put it with the rest of his things. He still has rope around his wrists. Couldn’t the knife, the rope, and the tent pole be used to make a spear? His mind crunches through the creative challenge of how to actually make a useful spear with a knife and a tent pole and some rope, something sturdy that wouldn’t just fall apart. As if he’ll have time to stop and create it any moment now. But what else is he supposed to focus on? His fate is nearly out of his hands. His mind is having a hard time letting him contemplate that.

When danger doesn’t come crashing down on him in one, two, three, four, five heartbeats, he glances back once, a wounded glare for enemies who did him wrong. There’s no one immediately behind him, but he can’t say for sure that he isn’t being chased or that he’s become unimportant to the Gerudo. He doesn’t look back again, and he pulls his thoughts from spear construction. He isn’t feeling winded at the moment, but he knows he’s no runner. He’s had enough shady run-ins with Clock Town guards to know that a survival sprint is going to wear him out tremendously once the action settles down. He doesn’t know how far he has to go before it will be safe to be worn out tremendously, or if he can expect to make it to a safe point like that on adrenaline. He’s used to working alone, and the urge to immediately find a hiding place overpowers any impulse to try and regroup with Link (though he wouldn’t complain if Link followed him). He sees a tangle of scrub and rocks off in the distance, and he makes for it, still sprinting for his survival. He has no idea if this first patch of cover available will be any good as a hiding place. But he does know that once he stops running, he’ll finally have some time to make that spear, and the environment will work in his favor if it comes to a fight. Link was right. It’s best for him to come back to Anju with the pendant, himself.

Kafei’s story about the ghost goron will add a mythical complication to the gerudos’ attempts to properly make sense of Darmani’s appearance. But one of the soldiers will listen to the others debate with quiet skepticism. She wasn’t close enough to catch Kafei before he got away, but she did see him look back as he was escaping. And his energy just didn’t quite match the degree of bewilderment and drama that the others describe about the way he told the story.

It was something about his eyes.

Darmani has been locked away for far too long. He’s practically bursting with energy, prepared to fight for however long Link needs him. And for now, Link just needs long enough for Kafei to escape. Once his friend is out of sight, he knows the Gerudo are no match for his speed, and he can simply roll away to safety.

The two of them slip back into a rhythm he thought long lost, communicating their attacks perfectly, unsure where one of their minds ends and the other begins. A punch here, a kick there. The more Gerudo swarmed around them, the more energized they became.

When Link sees Kafei disappear into the trees, he gives him a few more moments to make himself scarce. Then as one, he and Darmani curl up tightly and pound the ground once more, even harder. The Gerudo stumble, and he wastes no time in shooting away from the camp at top speed, rolling end over end, trusting an innate sense to steer him.

There was a moment of uncertainty as the other drew his blade. For a moment from the months of learning to always be ready to defend did his hand nearly reach for his own but stopped. The blade the other held was an identical one he too carried. He had heard stories of the legendary blade known as the Master Sword growing up, of course. But was it possible there was two to exist? It wouldn’t be the strangest of things to happen to him so far.

His left hand reached back for the blade on his own back just as the other had done. Holding it out it out to the other. Sure enough the two were exactly the same. “I never heard any stories growing up about there being two.” Then again all his knowledge mostly came from Bo and Rusl in the small town of Ordon. Though, both of them had their own travels they had certainly shared with him over the years. Yet, with how the other was reacting it didn’t seem like that should be something that should be.

“There never has been.” Link studied the two blades carefully, looking for even the slightest difference. But they looked utterly identical, so perfect they almost seemed to shine. “In all the stories, there has only ever been one Master Sword. But... the blade does have a strange connection... with time...”

“Long, stormy days cause me to grow weary. It’s so common, sometimes I forget what the sun looks like.”

It was too much. Too much for her battered mind to reconcile with her heart. The heart she had tried to wall off from everything. From the pain. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she did not pull away, shivering as silent streams flowed down pale cheeks. Was it relief? Or sorrow… that he wouldn’t just let her go.

She had never wanted to let go. She had missed him so much–

Without waiting for her brain to catch up with her, Zelda let out a choked sob and rushed forward, forgetting her gloves and fears and protocol so that she could hold him properly.

“L-Link… I-I’m so sorry–”

The suddenness startled him, but he didn’t hesitate to draw her into his arms, holding her close. The last time they’d been like this, they’d been the same size, but now he’d grown so tall, and she was so delicate... it felt so different, but also, just the same. They just fit together.